Cricket Training
by Peter Smith
Summary: In the second of my series of one-shots, two familiar characters take a short-cut one afternoon, and end up in a lot of trouble.


This is the second story in my series of one-shots. Remember, the Rangers are Australian in my series, so in summer they'll be playing cricket (since it's too hot to play most other sports that aren't water-related). This story is a before-they-were-Rangers-tale, about an adventure that Jason and Zac had one afternoon when they were 14. So this takes place _before_ "The New Team" (heck, this takes place before "Day of the Dumpster"). Enjoy.

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><p><strong>Cricket Training<strong>

"We'll never make it in time," Zac said, and turned to his best friend Jason. "We're gonna have to take a short cut."

Jason frowned, and glanced from his watch to the wooded hill rising above them. Cricket training started at five, and it was already four fifty. If they went around the hill like usual, it'd take at least twenty minutes, and then another ten to reach the training paddock. Straight over the hill _would_ save them a lot of time. Not to mention, the backpacks with all their cricket gear weren't getting any lighter.

Still. It was the hill.

"I don't know," Jason said.

"C'mon," Zac pleaded. "We've been late twice this month already. Coach isn't gonna forgive us for a third time. It's not like we're gonna run into anybody. Everyone always goes around the hill."

There was a reason for that, Jason thought glumly, looking across the street to the scrubland facing them. Safely behind a chain link fence, the shadowy woods were unnervingly quiet in the mid-afternoon. Honestly? An angry coach was almost Jason's preferred option. But Zac was right. They'd been late to practice too often already.

"Okay," Jason nodded. "Straight up over the hill. We don't stop for anything."

"You got it," Zac said.

Crossing the street, they helped each other over the fence and fought their way through the trees until they found a walking track. As tangled as the trail was, it wasn't the hill that was the problem. No, it was the old Mason house on top of the bluff overlooking the ocean. Jason knew that if he'd been travelling alone, he wouldn't have gone anywhere near the place.

Ahead, the trees parted. The object of his thoughts loomed out of the shadows.

"There's the house," Zac nodded. His voice was barely a whisper.

"Shh," Jason hissed. Without realising it, they quickened their pace.

The mansion had been built by an old British colonial family a hundred years ago. Ancient and full of secrets, the three storey building sat a short distance away from the cliff, and was topped with medieval spires and turrets. Few of the windows were intact, and moss was slowly reclaiming the building's exterior. An iron fence bordered the entire property, and the garden inside was twisted and overgrown. Nobody had lived there for decades, and it showed.

But the worst thing, Jason thought, was the statue overlooking the front yard. Standing in front of the house's grand entrance on a raised concrete pedestal, the imposing figure was cracked and weathered from long exposure to the elements. Nobody quite knew who'd built the statue, or why the man's gaze was so intense. According to local legend, he'd been an old maritime sailor, but his ship had run aground off the coast and he'd drowned in the same ocean the house now overlooked. The oddest thing about the statue, though, was that it was clean. Birds refused to perch there, and Jason couldn't help but wonder why.

There were rumours, of course, that spread through the town below about the house being haunted. Jason had always tried to ignore them, figuring they existed just to scare the city's youngest residents. But even as teenagers, he and Zac continued to hear whispers of strange things happening up on the hill. Homeless people seeking shelter from bad weather who'd vanished. Pets that'd escaped their owners by wriggling under the iron fence, and were never seen again.

Jason jogged to a stop to catch his breath, while Zac slowed down beside him.

"I hate that statue," Zac said.

Jason nodded. "It's like it's watching you…"

A fierce wind suddenly picked up. The trees behind them bent in the breeze. Jason reached up to grab his hat before he lost it, but Zac was too slow, and the gust whipped his cap into the air. Zac dropped his backpack and jumped for it, but he was too late. The hat was far above their heads, and rising.

"Damn it," Zac groaned. They could do nothing but watch helplessly as the cap sailed over the fence and up towards the house. It hung in the air for a second, teasing them, then slowly drifted down, snagging onto a broken piece of glass in one of the second floor windows.

Jason already knew what Zac was thinking. "No."

Zac turned to him. "I have to…"

"_No_."

"It's my favourite cap," Zac said. "Besides, there's a pin on it that belongs to my grandfather. He'll never forgive me if I lose it."

Jason sighed. They were late already. Another minute probably wouldn't cost them. "Well, maybe we can just climb up and get it?"

They both shuffled closer to the house, keeping as much distance as they could between themselves and the statue. "I don't think we can," Zac said. The walls were sheer, and the second storey seemed further off the ground than a normal house. The only tree nearby was a scraggly paperbark barely taller than Jason.

"Now hang on a minute," Jason began, as Zac stepped over to the front doors. "We are _not_ going inside."

Zac had already climbed the steps and was reaching for the handle. The door creaked open. "It's not like anyone lives here," he said. "We'll be in and out. It's not even breaking and entering. The door was open. What are the police gonna do?"

Against his better judgement, Jason joined Zac on the step. "It's not the police I'm worried about," he murmured, glancing over to the statue. But without any further protest, he followed Zac inside.

They tiptoed into a cathedral-sized foyer, their footsteps echoing off the marble floor and ceiling high above. Dust and cobwebs hung from the chandeliers over their heads, while leaves and rubbish crunched beneath their shoes, blown in by the wind. They both felt very small.

Jason nodded to the walls. "No graffiti," he whispered. "This place has been empty for years. You'd think it'd be covered in the stuff."

They followed the foyer deeper. On one side was a lounge room full of ghosts, and Zac held his breath until he realised he was looking at furniture draped in old sheets. On the other side was a saloon, with a bar and a grand piano by the wall. They reached the end of the atrium and inched around the corner to find a staircase. As quietly as they could, they made their way up towards the second floor, the steps creaking ominously under their shoes. Jason was regretting the decision to step foot in the house more and more with every passing second.

Reaching the landing, they gazed down a long, dark hallway.

"I think it was the third window along," Zac said. "You coming?"

Jason glanced from the stairs to the hallway. A few metres away, a narrow window stood behind tattered curtains, offering a brief glimpse of the front yard but letting in very little light. "I'll feel better if I can keep an eye on our way out," he replied. "Just hurry."

Zac nodded. He stepped away from Jason and tried the first door on the left. Waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he swept his gaze around the room. It had been a child's bedroom at some point in the past. An old dollhouse sat beside the bed with rotting dolls on the floor nearby. But there was no sign of his hat, and he quickly retreated.

As Zac approached the next door along, Jason pulled the curtains aside and glanced out the window. "Um, Zac?"

Zac ignored him, and stepped into the next room. It was also a bedroom, with an antique pram in the corner under a blanket of cobwebs. But turning to the windows, Zac smiled. His cap was there, hanging on a shard of glass. Careful not to disturb anything, he made his way across the room, reached through the window and grabbed the hat. Mission accomplished, he headed back for the hallway.

"Zac!" Jason hissed.

Shoving the cap into his pocket, Zac jogged back to Jason's side. "What?" Zac asked.

"The statue's gone," Jason said simply.

Zac's face fell, and he followed Jason's gaze out the window. He could just make out the concrete platform the statue had been standing on. The corner of the house was in the way, but he should've at least been able to see the statue's arm and leg. A chill ran down his spine as he realised that he couldn't.

"We need to get out of here," Jason said tersely.

"You ain't wrong," Zac nodded.

With that, they turned and ran, racing down the stairs two-at-a-time and sprinting for the door. There was no more effort to keep quiet. In both their minds, escape now took priority over stealth. The faster of the two, Zac reached the door first and grabbed at the handle.

The door was locked.

"No way," Zac murmured, as Jason caught up to him. He tried again, violently shaking the handle. There was no budging it. "This was unlocked before."

"I have a bad feeling about this…" Jason began, but he looked away and his voice trailed off. Zac turned to see what had caught his attention, and his blood ran cold. Sunlight was streaming in through one of the windows in the lounge, filling the connecting doorway with light. But on the tiles was the shadowy outline of the statue.

It was in the house.

Zac's eyes flew wide. "No way," he said. "There has to be a rational explanation for this."

Jason nodded. "Or we could run for it?"

"Plan B it is."

The boys bolted, racing for the nearest door. Feet pounding the tiles, they sprinted into the saloon. Jason swept his gaze through the shadows and immediately saw another door leading deeper into the house. It wasn't a great option, but better than the alternative.

"There!" he shouted, pointing for the door. In his haste, he tripped over one of the piano legs and stumbled to the floor. Zac stopped to help him scramble to his feet, but the sound of footsteps suddenly reached them, something large and heavy scraping across the marble tiles.

"Go!" shouted Jason. A step ahead, Zac reached the doorway first and followed it down into an old, abandoned kitchen. There were no doors and only a small window over the sink, so they raced into the next room, a small library. Zac came to a halt as a shadowy figure rose up before them, but soon saw it was a coat stand under a sheet. Racing into the room behind him, Jason reached for the door and slammed it shut, throwing his body against it.

"Where to now?" Jason asked, his heart pounding. The approaching steps were now echoing off the kitchen tiles.

Zac nodded. "Hang on," he said. Tearing the sheet off the coat stand, he turned to the nearest window. The glass was intact, and the window was fixed shut. But Zac grinned. With a rush of adrenalin, he grabbed the coat stand, swung it around and smashed it through the glass. Shards flew everywhere, but Zac ignored the spray and struck the window again, shattering the remaining glass.

"Let's go!" he shouted, dropping the coat stand and scrambling through to safety. Jason didn't need to be told twice, leaping across the room and diving out of the window. He landed in the grass beside Zac and rolled to his feet. But his cricket bat had fallen out of his backpack as he'd landed, and he reached back into the house and grabbed it.

"C'mon!" Zac shouted. Racing around the outside of the building, the boys vaulted an overgrown flower bed and headed for the wrought-iron fence. Without slowing down, Zac leaped up and scaled the fence, while Jason threw his backpack over and joined his best friend on the other side seconds later. The front yard was in sight, and as they reached the path, they skidded to a triumphant stop, panting and dazed.

Whatever had been chasing them, they'd outrun it.

Zac turned back to the house as his heart-rate returned to normal, but froze. "I don't believe it," he said softly. The statue was there in front of the house, on the platform where they'd left it, as frozen in stone as it had always been.

Jason glanced uncertainly to Zac. There was a second of unsure silence as Zac stepped closer to investigate. But with their adrenalin subsiding, they started laughing riotously.

"Holy crap," Zac laughed. "He was here the whole time, wasn't he?"

"The house just freaked us out," Jason said, and shook his head. "Wow. I feel stupid."

Zac grinned. "You and me both man," he said, and turned back to the statue…

… just as the statue stepped off the platform, its stony features twisting into a predatory sneer.

Zac froze as the rocky hand reached for his throat. But suddenly there was an almighty 'crack' as Jason slammed his cricket bat into the statue's face, taking its head clean off its shoulders. The statue crumbled beneath them, the sheer force of the blow shattering the bat to splinters. They watched as the statue's head sailed over the cliff and vanished from sight, waiting for a few seconds until a satisfying splash echoed up from below.

Zac turned to his best friend. "What were we doing at training today?"

"Working on the power in our swings," Jason replied.

"Right," Zac nodded. "You wanna skip it and just go get a juice or something?"

Jason thought for a second. "Sounds like a plan," he said, and the two boys walked away from the house. "You know the worst thing?" Jason continued, kicking a stone along the ground. "That was my favourite bat, too."

"Tell you what, I'll buy you a new one. Just promise to never let me take a short cut ever again."

"Deal."

The End.


End file.
